An institutional approach towards migration and health in China

WithXIANG BIAO

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There are at least eighty-ﬁve million rural-urban migrants in mainland
China. These migrants face great health risks, yet are not covered by any
medical care scheme. In linking migration and health, particularly in studies
of migration and HIV, most of the existing literature adopts a ‘behavioural
approach’, which assumes that certain migrant behaviour patterns are
disease-prone. Moving away from this perspective, I propose an ‘institutional approach’ which holds that migrants face particular health problems
because of their position in the established social system. In terms of policy
recommendations, the behavioural approach tends to focus on policies that
directly affect migrants’ health behaviours, while the institutional approach
draws attention to the fact that medical policies are embedded in various
other institutions, and accordingly stresses the importance of examining the
relationship between different institutional arrangements and identifying
realistic strategies for policy change.